“This recipe is going to be a super-easy chili recipe that we’re going to be able to eat all week long,” says Cherie Chan of CrossFit Verve, located in Denver, Colo.

Join Cherie and husband Matt for an inside scoop on their nutrition as they prepare a hearty dish. They use Zone Diet proportions to figure out a total block count for the meal.

“In the chili recipe, we started by deciding how much protein we were going to put in the recipe,” she says.

For the protein, Cherie uses ground beef from a grass-fed cow they purchased. Then she adds an equal amount of blocks of fat, using olives. Finally, she adds vegetables and salsa as carbohydrates to reach the desired consistency and blockage. According to Cherie, “Carbs are always the last thing that I do on the recipe.”

After the chili is finished, Cherie measures the quantity and does the math to figure out portions.

“You gotta write everything down. If you don't write it down, you will forget,” she says.

To cook up a batch of Chan Chili for yourself, download the recipe here.

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I really do appreciate the way crossfit takes all the data that they gather from their top athletes. The workout times and weights, their programming and their diets. This might be over the top for 99% of folks but these athletes are serious about what they do and it is great to see what goes into making a top athlete like Matt Chan.

The chili looks delicious! Olives and salsa are my favorite and I have never thought about adding those ingredients to the chili. On another note, it was really cool seeing Matt load the dishwasher in the background. That is my job when my wife cooks. Thanks for the great video!

Cool video on how you can prepare things ahead of time. Which I have been doing lately...however, that might be the WORST chili recipe I have ever seen. Maybe not the ingredients but the cooking process, chili should be slowly cooked, at least in my opinion. Whatever floats your boat I suppose :)

Love CrossFit but simply can't understand the promotion of the Zone Diet. Few in the Nutrition Science world take it very seriously and the evidence simply isn't there for its unique effectiveness. Its "fake" percision.

Cherie and Matt, thank you for the vids. This really inspires me to take a few hours one day and go out with my wife and do this cause 1 it gives me somthing healthy and fun to do with the Mrs. and 2 hell its healthy. Can't wait to get back to the States =(

Elijah,
Last year when I was first introduced to paleo diet I searched around and got lucky at Lowes and bought a 15.3 cubic foot freezer for 25% off (floor model with a small dent). You don't really need one this big but thats my style, Go Big or go home lol. Anyway with a little research you can find a local farm and purchase a grass feed free range cow and stock up your freezer. I bought quarter of a cow a year ago and still have half left lol. I went in with another Crossfiter and we got a deal for buying 75% of the cow at one time. It may seem like a lot of money at first but it will last you months and tastes great! Remember you can never spend enough money to maintain the only body you got.

This vid was inspirational, I personally am so interested in getting my nutrition better every day. I still have a lot of work to do, I wand to be even more of an elite athlete. It would be great to stop by the CHan Box someday soon

I am also puzzled by the overt promotion of the Zone diet. I agree with the above comment that the nutrition science literature simply doesn't support the notion that it has unique effects or that the efforts required to measure out food leads to substantially better outcomes than just improving diet quality by reducing or eliminating high glycemic index foods. Also, it is interesting to me that few CrossFitters that I have met use the zone, and I have been to more than 25 boxes nationally. At a grassroots level, it is my impression that most eat paleo or primal style. Just a thought.

A bit too anal for me. Where's the garlic? Where's the cumin? Where are the pepper flakes? And chili powder and not to mention cayenne pepper? Tomato salsa from a jar? Are you kidding me? Use real roma tomatoes. Cheaper, better tasting and way less acidity. Can we dice the onions? Throw in some low sodium chicken stock.

Bro, you sound like me in that you probably enjoy cooking and are pretty decent at it. They both admitted they aren't good cooks. This chili doesn't sound horrible. I feel like without the addition of the extra calories and fat that things like spices and herbs go a hell of a long way to improve the taste of "diet" food. A little Ancho Chile powder, some diced up Jalepenos and some cumin might go a long way. I loved the last line "squeeze out the freshness" haha. Great vid guys...keep em coming. I second Clayton's post about needing a wife. lol

The Zone again; people attempting to eat numbers, numbers prescribed from an incomplete knowledge base (nutritional science). With one foot in quantitative, the other in qualitative but not really getting to grips with either.

I just want to say I am not knocking Cherie and Matt, intake should at some point be addressed and monitored, they are putting the work in and the results show, clearly, and of course there's many ways 'up mount Fuji as it were', but that's the point...

There is no 'zone': metabolism, physiology and the result you get is the interaction of your genotype, epigenetic factors and your environment and actions.

I'd say at best the Zone is a starting point to work from but there are many others just as useful, if not more so.

I have used the zone for two years and can say that it is a relative easy system to use. At first i was slow and was a bit confused but after a few months all those calculations i could do in my head. I have scores of data saved from each of my eating cycles and can now simply look up anything that I'm not clear of. Yes the task seemed daunting for first but it really lets me analyze my overall results as far as how nutrition might play a part, allowing me to tweak my intake according according to the data I have collected. I guess if i am going to measure every variable in my fitness path, i just choose to make nutritional intake a metric to. People being strict with weighing and measuring is not a new thing either and has been brought many times before. I do agree that the quality of your food is one of the most important factors in diet and even Dr. Sear emphasizes quality over quantity, but i just would hate to think all the quantifiable data I would have lost had i not measured my portions. Well thats just me though..lol.

To the Chans:

Thank you for the video and instruction. It helped me to better explain multiple proportion preparation to a client along with keeping it taste. We had fun cooking the chilli.

To my fellow Crossfiters: Thank you all for making the forum interesting and thought provoking making crossfiter ever better for it. Stay Strong! Stay Crossfit!

At least they are doing paleo zone and not eating grains, legumes, and dairy. I think it's a bit overkill but I'm not anywhere near the level of Matt Chan either. It seems ever since Robb Wolfe and Crossfit had a falling out they don't promote paleo anymore. I recently read the "Paleo Solution" and everything in that book is backed up with science and real life stories. Paleo is a lot easier to deal with too...

I love this video series. I do the exact same thing about twice a week (So i always have fresh veggies and fruit). I keep a spreadsheet of everything I eat everyday too so i make sure i'm hitting my RX but also gives me a tracker of how much food to buy. Truely inspired by the chans, I love the meticulous detailed work you put into to the simple things like diet. I have been eating paleo zone for 2 months now and the difference is amazing. btw I am totally going to use your chili recipe it looks great.

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